HC stays trial against TV serial producer

stay on trial court proceedings against TV serial producer Suhaib Ilyasi has been ordered by the Delhi High Court, accused in the dowry death case of his wife, on a plea for trying him for murder charge.

Justice Kailash Gambhir in his order told that the trial court proceedings are stayed till further orders and posted the matter for August 22. The trial court was scheduled to hear the final arguments in the case tomorrow.

The court passed the order after recording the submission of complainant Rukma Singh’s counsel that this court should stay the trial court proceeding till it decided the plea for graver charge of murdering against Ilyasi for Anju’s death.

Challenging the trial court’s February 19, 2011 order dismissing her application to try him under the penal provision of murder, Singh said her son-in-law (Suhaib) has been facing charge of killing his wife for dowry under Section 304 of IPC, which attracts much lesser punishment.

Singh relied upon the statement of Dr L C Gupta, who had conducted the post-mortem and contradicted his earlier findings after more than one and half years saying homicide cannot be ruled out.

Gupta had earlier stated in his report to police that injuries inflicted upon Anju were self inflicted and suicidal in nature.

Earlier, the trial court had rejected Singh’s plea to invoke additional murder charge against her son-in-law Ilyasi, saying no fresh evidence has emerged against him.

The high court also clubbed Ilyasi’s plea challenging the proceedings of a medical board constituted by police to examine him afresh the reasons of his wife Anju’s death in 2000.

Ilyasi, who had shot into limelight after hosting the TV serial on crime ‘India’s Most Wanted’ and currently editor-in- chief of Bureaucracy Today magazine, alleged in his plea that even after the lapse of over 12 years when the trial is at its fag end, police, without getting sanction from the lower court, constituted a medical board to examine afresh the reasons of his wife’s death.

Ilyasi was arrested on March 28, 2000 and later, charges were framed against him in the case after his sister-in-law and mother-in-law alleged that he used to torture his wife for dowry.